calibre 0.5.12 is available and installed on my Toshiba laptop.
I’m close to having a race ready Fedora RPM built. Given calibre’s update frequency, maybe I ought to finish the packaging.
When that happens, look for a Downloads tab appearing on a weblog near you.
-k-
Amazon was less than understanding about my request for source code for their MP3 downloader. They were prompt and courteous in their response; that alone is rare. They don’t release source, and gosh, why don’t I use a Fedora release on which the downloader has been tested? Well, first, because it’s Fedora 9, two releases ago.
I was tempted to engage in an e-mail exchange with them, in which I’d point out that:
I still think Amazon should open source the downloader. But, to do business with them on Fedora 11, do the following; these instructions are for 32 bit systems; they should be easily modifiable to work on 64 bit installations:
I’ve downloaded one MP3 from Amazon since doing this, as a test run1. The MP3 was placed in ~/Music/artist/album_name/track_name. So, in my test case, the MP3 wound up in:
/home/knelson/Music/Amazon MP3/Country Joe And The Fish/Together/10 – Cetacean.mp3
And, it plays. I use Songbird, which gladly imports tracks from the aforementioned directory.
It would be trivial to hack up Amazon’s RPM, and include the libraries; or alternatively, to gin up another RPM which contains these libs. I’ll leave that for another day.
-k-
1
calibre 0.5.11 now runs strong and tall on my Linux laptop. I wonder how much I’ll really need to reformat personal content after the Kindle DX is on-board. I think the DX is going to handle my PDF manuals just fine.
I think, though, I’ll keep up with calibre. Who knows? I may hit some creative streak, wherein I’ll publish treatises of original thought and insight, and use the Kindle for something other than a high tech flat rate manual. Maybe. Stranger things have happened. Also, I’m getting closer to getting calibre whipped into an RPM, which will make the upgrade process much simpler. And, yes, if I get a suitable RPM built, I’ll share. That’s also part of the FOSS “payment” process.
-k-
Last weekend, in a fit of tbbs WorldHQ tidying, defenestration, and spontaneous combustion abatement, I became distressed at the state of our remote controls for our various home entertainment devices.
I’ll say first that MLB and I don’t have a huge array of devices to control; our home entertainment stack consists of a Sharp Aquos TV, a DirecTV tuner/DVR combo, a slimline Sony DVD player, and a JVC Sirius satellite radio tuner. Each of these has a remote control device. We also have a Sony big-button “universal remote” that isn’t, well, universal. Perhaps Sony defines universal in a more restrictive manner than I do.
Anyhow, with this array of remotes, we’ve observed the following:
You can see where I’m going with this, right? We need the DirecTV remote for the pause functionality, and at least one of the TV/”Universal” ones handy to run everything else. One of them has invariably fallen under the table between our chairs, and it falls to me to curse while I retrieve the wayward device.
Last weekend’s cleaning extravaganza was powered by Shiner, so I was in a relaxed and receptive mood when I visited Amazon in search of Daily Deals. To my surprise, the Logitech Harmony 890 was available; a refurbished model could be had for $125 or so. I’d never bought a refurbished anything, so I went off in search of new. Oh, they were available all right, from $250-$325, depending on vendor. Logitech has an exhaustive database of devices the 890 can control out of the box; all our stuff was there, and I clicked “Buy Now” for the refurbished model.
The remote and its charging cradle arrived mid-week; a day of charging up, followed by the installation and upgrade of the 890′s programming software on the Mac laptop, connecting the the 890 to the Mac via USB, knuckling in the device names and model numbers was followed by the 890′s display menu showing Watch TV and Play DVD. And, what a treat. Pressing Watch TV turned on the TV, satellite tuner; beautiful. All the buttons on the 890 did the expected thing. Still no pause live TV; crap. The buttons on the 890 are somewhat smallish for an old guy like me. I adjusted my bifocals, and tried the one labelled pause. Duh. Live TV stopped in its tracks. What a device!
Today, I got the Sirius tuner added to the devices on the remote, and I’m pleased with the results. And there’s now ample room for my netbook on my table, with the 5 other remotes now stored out of the way. MLB even likes it, in spite of her aversion to gadgets.
-k-
I’m on order. The potential of the Kindle DX was just too great to leave unexplored. Having manuals, usually in PDF, handy on one easy to use device will be a good thing. Nearly all vendors distribute their documentation in PDF; even when you get a CD with the documents, they’re PDFs. Firing up Acrobat and wading through docs on a new product has always been hard for me; I can’t easily highlight and bookmark pages of interest, and I’m stuck reading on a computer screen.
I’ve even resorted to sending important documents to Kinko’s, and having them printed and bound. Not only is that pricey(one manual costs around $30, depending on length), but the spiral binding wears out over time. Then there’s the problem of finding storage space for these volumes. Oh, and when V 2.0 of product X hits the streets, the manuals are now obsolete. On the Kindle, delete and archive the old, load up the new.
MLB has expressed an interest in the Kindle 2, and she will be taking that over after the DX arrives later this summer. She’s already pointed out that the DX is my “Happy Father’s Day, Happy Anniversary, Happy Birthday, and Merry Christmas” present for the year. I’m OK with that.
-k-
I never have been behind the curve so fast; I’m still digging my Amazon Kindle 2, and now there’s this new thing called the Kindle DX.
I have no quarrel with the screen size, quality, and ease of use of the Kindle 2. The DX has entered the mix in an effort to better render newspapers, a feature which fails to excite me. However, part of the DX allure is a native PDF reader, which should deliver my personal long-sought holy grail of having one device capable of holding any vendor-supplied manual that I might need or want. Add the additional storage capacity of the DX, and I’m salivating. At $489, though, the DX has entered netbook, if not low-end laptop territory in the price category.
I have no burning desire to have the newest Big Shiny Thing; were I Kindleless, I’d seriously entertain a DX, even at that price point. Had I been prescient enough to bet $10 on the Kentucky Derby winner on the nose, I’d be a DX’er for sure.
I wait, and watch.
-k-
Appearing in a sidebar near you, the Fedora 11 Countdown to Release clock. You needn’t wait. The beta is stable, and you can get it now. They don’t call it beta; they call it pre-release. I’m thankful I don’t understand marketingspeak. The software works, and it’s great. Go get it. Don’t cost nothin’.
-k-
That would be reinstalling calibre. The calibre maintainer is not in the least shy about releasing frequent updates. Considering the number of different readers, operating systems, and ebook formats that he’s supporting, I’m not shocked at this. In fact, it’s encouraging; much better to have a constantly changing and improving product than a lame duck that “kinda works.”
Part of participation in free and open source software, from a user’s perspective, is a willingness to stay current with the product; yes that requires a little effort. If you’re not willing to invest that time, perhaps FOSS isn’t really for you.
So, I’m running the latest calibre, and next weekend, I’ll bake a fresh one, if it gets updated again. The time involved in building a new version is measured in minutes, not days or weeks. This is a negligible price to pay.
-k-
O’Reilly, purveyors of books for geeks, programmers, and sysadmins, have made available 160 or so Kindle-friendly titles, with a promise of adding more. The Kindle offerings are available sans DRM directly from the Amazon Kindle store.
I bought a couple of cheaper titles in mobi format direct from O’Reilly and uploaded them to the Kindle. I wasn’t pleased with the way the Kindle rendered them, and have been holding off purchasing any more expensive mobi titles. In the release announcing the availability of certain titles direct from Amazon:
…we’d been directing Kindle owners to oreilly.com, where all of our “ebook bundles” include a Kindle-compatible .mobi version that can be uploaded or emailed to your Kindle. While the table and code issues remained, readers at least had the other, richer formats (EPUB and PDF) for reference. We’ve now updated all of the .mobi files for sale at oreilly.com to display properly on Kindle 2 (basically undoing many of the hacks we’d done to get something passable the first time around). If you own a Kindle and have purchased ebooks from oreilly.com, visit oreilly.com/e from the Kindle browser to download the updated .mobi files directly to your Kindle. While we will also update our ebooks with Amazon as changes are made and errors fixed, they currently have no way of updating that content for customers who already purchased it.
Outstanding! Thanks, O’Reilly! Such after the sale service and commitment is a rarity.
-k-
This year’s CREATE South conference is underway in Myrtle Beach1. I had planned on being there this year; $DAYJOB provides the wherewithal to fund such an excursion, and I was up for a road trip. Unfortunately, $DAYJOB doesn’t realize:
That, combined with an unexpected drop in my PTO2 balance during MLB’s recent hospital stay, leaves me in the tbbs WorldHQ control room, following the proceedings via the Twitter.
I even restored my old Twitter account, so I could play along. I don’t embrace the Twitter for frivolous causes.
Enjoy, CREATErs! See y’all in 2010!
-k-